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Monday, January 21, 2013

"People Ate Them All"

We subscribe to a Yahoo forum for residents of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Usually the topics discussed are related to living here.  

The other night Craig read the following entry to me. 


"l am currently on my first ever business trip to China. This list popping up in my e-mail, with tidbits of mountain life from time to time is a wonderful connection to home whilst traveling thru this overpopulated cacophony.

I've always enjoyed the woods, the birds and the animals where we live… but when the birds crap on my stair railing, or the deer eat my flowers or my treasured Maples… I confess... I get a bit angered by them.

No more.

It took me a couple days to realize that there are no birds here. No birds, Zip, None, Zilch. I have not seen a single one. At first I thought it was the pollution… and in part it certainly must be. I have asked at least 10 people about this and they all say the same thing however. "People ate them." "WHAT?" "Okay" I ask, "when you go out of the city away from all this pollution there must be birds?" "No, no birds in China. Even when I go to my home town in the middle of China there are no birds." "What about other animals… deer, fox, etc.?" "No, no deer, no wild animals. People ate them all." I've been trying to tell them about the mountain lions, the deer that eat my maples that I go out and throw rocks at, the great horned owls in the trees that I hoot to... and they hoot back. Spring time when the air is alive with the songs of thousands of birds. The video camera we put by the birds nests to watch the chicks hatch. They look at me like I'm telling tall tales. "No, there is a bird park where you can go about 60 kilometers north of here where they have some birds." "They are protected so nobody can eat those birds." "I went to Germany once and I saw some wild birds...Swans in a park!" I am just flabbergasted. I didn't believe it at first, but have asked many people in several different places and I get the same response. "People cook . People cook everything taste good. But it all gone now." The entire environment cooked? Seriously?

No birds, and no sunglasses. I have probably seen 100,000 people in the last 2 hours, and not one pair of sunglasses. No need. The sky is brown. People look at me funny when I wear mine. I leave them in the hotel now. I can't see well with sunglasses at high noon. It's too dark under the yellow-brown lens of the sky.

OMG we live in a wonderful place. Next time a doe eats my fuchsias… I'm gonna invite her back for a second helping of blossoms. I'm not sure about the crap on the stair railings… can we find another place for that guys? … okay, if you must.

-Kevin"


I do recall reading that the early Communist government ordered people to chase the birds so they would not eat the crop seeds, but I would have thought they had returned by now.  

I guess not. 



12 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing a very interesting post. Thanks to Craig for spotting it in the first place.

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  2. Is this for real? If it is, it is sad. I am currently living on a wildlife refuge and its fantastic to see the birds and animals everyday. There are about 560 National Wildlife Refuges in the U.S.

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  3. That's awful. Wow, I had no idea the Chinese ate all their wildlife.

    I know in some areas of China the fishermen use cormorants to catch fish for them. I guess those birds are too valuable to eat.

    Wow, say it isn't so.

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  4. Yup. True.
    It was a couple years ago by now I would think, but one of my wife's associates was briefly in China and commented on how there was NOT ONE SINGLE BIRD to be seen or heard.
    That, plus the fact that you couldn't see the sky for the pollution.
    And her company thought we'd be willing to move there! Ha!

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  5. Wow, the things you find out about other countries. Won't complain about critters again :)

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  6. That is so sad. No matter what goes on here, this is the best country in the world. I can't imagine a USA without all the birds, deer, and other wonderful animals we see every day. Full-timing is so greatly enhanced by the sightings I have and the photos I snap and can keep forever. I can't imagine what it would be like without them.

    I wonder if they have dogs and cats for pets.

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  7. We were watching a show on Nat Geo once and they were showing them killing and eating rats. YUK! And here I thought they lived many on rice :) I'd be as skinny as them IF I had to eat my birds No way!

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  8. I didn't know about the birds but I do feel for them about their pollution...mainly because of our consumerism. And their pollution now reaches to the USA on many a summer day on the west coast. If nothing else that keeps me from buying stuff...

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  9. That is really sad. God Bless America!

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  10. Wow.

    I've read descriptions by the first European settlers to come out to this country and they were amazed at the amount of birds in the sky, they described the birds as blocking out the sun and filling the entire sky. Harbors were filled with birds. It's a far cry from the amount of wildlife we have in the US now. We've done our own damage to the natural ecosystem here. It's a good thing most of us have wised up to that fact, and I'm really happy there is still wildlife.

    I'm in Quartzsite now, and I can watch our neighbors' multiple bird feeders being visited by a myriad of birds and also a wild bunny or two :)

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